My Converse Match Your Tunic
by Scratch O'Brien
Summary: Okay, Peter Pan is real. I hate it when my mother's right.
1. Aunt Jane

_Well, I am finally breaking away from _Newsies_ to start a_ Peter Pan _fan fiction. This probably means all my_ Quicksilver _readers are going to be mad at me :-P but when inspiration comes a-knocking, I am not one to keep the door shut._

_So, here it is:_ My Converse Match Your Tunic _-- a_ Peter Pan_ story._

_DISCLAIMER: I do not own_ Peter Pan _or any of the original_ Peter Pan _characters as created by the brilliant Sir James M. Barrie. The Great Ormond Street Hosipital does (that's right; Mr. Barrie gave them the rights so that the money would all go to them. You can't put on a play of Peter Pan without having to pay royalty fees to them.)_

_On with the show!_

---

I looked up at the big white house. It had not fallen derelict in the ten years since last I was here. The paint was bright as ever, and the geraniums in their terra cotta pots were blooming.

"That's a big house."

I glanced sideways at my little brother. He could never stand silence for too long.

My other brother looked up from _Don Quixote_ long enough to add "Well, of course, Michael; it was built during the Victorian Period. They were really quite lavish back then."

I felt like being snippy that day, as I had been dragged all the way from our own cozy little Victorian home in Rhode Island to this one in London, so I turned to him snapped "Shut your little 4.0 GPA trap, John," before walking up the path that led to the porch stairs.

I reached the three-step staircase leading up to the porch. My suitcase was a rollaway, so I had to press down the long, sliding handle before picking it up by the short, stationary one and carrying it up the steps. I set it down to ring the doorbell. My brothers had caught up to me.

"Can I ring the doorbell?" Michael asked with Bambi eyes full of hope.

"Go for it," I said. He smiled happily up at me before turning to the door, giving me an excellent view of his blue backpack. He rang the bell, pressing the button with a chubby finger. He stepped back and reached up to grasp my gloved hand with his mittened one.

Michael melted my heart, even though I wasn't feeling very kind today; as I mentioned before, we all three had been shipped off here to England (and me without coffee), and I was carrying Michaels Crayola Crayon duffel bag, which contained the majority of his clothing... not to mention the very attractive boys my age who were also unaccompanied minors whose first impression of me was a very frazzeled girl carrying said duffel bag, trying to keep track of her kid brother while another boy apparently related to her sat calmly and read to the end of _Moby Dick_ and began on his present occupation, _Don Quixote_. He even tried to start up a conversation with one of them about how _Don Quixote_ was published in 1612 and is one of the oldest novels ever or something. And John's victim of choice just happened to be the only guy who paid any interest in me. He actually started a conversation with me about the annoyance of little siblings -- his little sister had a fetish with Hello Kitty and the color pink.

The door opened. It was our cardigan-clad Aunt Jane. "Ah, hel-_lo_, darlings!" She chirped, swelling the hello into a crescendo. She kissed each of us on the cheek.

"Hello, Aunt Jane," I replied. I made sure to say "Ahnt" because my mother told me that Great Aunt Jane could not stand being called an "Ant". And I left out the Great, because that bugged her too. No bad puns intended.

"Oh, please, darlings, come in! The tea's already started; it should be done brewing after we get you settled in your room. I'll get this suitcase," she said and leaned toward the (much) larger rollaway. Ha. No way was I letting my Great Aunt carry _that_ up the flight of stairs. I pretended not to notice she was going for that one and picked it up before she could get to it.

"Upstairs?" I asked.

"Yes; in the nursery." She led the way up the stairs and to the second door on the right. Which I have always found a coincidence, as my mother and Aunt Jane tried to convice me (though my mother gave up when I was seven) that this house is the original Peter Pan house, complete with pictures of twelve Nanas ranging from sepia to color and the living example of the twelfth picture.

Nana XII (known just as "Nana") was waiting in the nursury. When Aunt Jane and I walked into the room, she was using her teeth to pull on the quilt atop the cast iron bed to smooth out the wrinkles. She gave me a kind bark in greeting and trotted over. I patted her head, covered with a white cotton mob cap with blue ribbons. Very _Peter Pan_ Disney. At least she doesn't dose us with castor oil, whatever that is besides disgusting.

I'm sure it looked almost exactly as it did when my great-great Grandmother Wendy was a girl; it was a house that had passed the test of time (and the bombings of WWII) with only the windowpanes being replaced and the addition of electricity. Oh, and one more thing:

Aunt Jane started locking the window.

Oh, don't play dumb; you know the window. The one that Peter Pan supposedly always flies through to take a girl from each generation of the Darling family bloodline to Never Never Land: Wendy, my great-great grandmother; then my great Aunt Jane (her daughter), then her daughter Angela, then her niece Ivy (my mother).

And I think that's why we got sent here. Because our family is freakin' obsessed with Peter Pan. Especially my mother. No joke. Her checks have a picture of all three Darling children from the Disney movie hiding behind John's umbrella. Not to mention she named her three children after the "original" Darling kids. My littlest brother is Michael, as you already know; he's six and still sleeps in Thomas the Tank Engine footie pajamas. Next up is John; the intellectual middle child who is twelve and has an IQ of 153. And OCD. Yes, OCD. I have to keep my bedroom door shut always (not that that bugs me) because if he caught a glimpse at my fire-hazard of a room, he would go ballistic. Give him two hours or so and my bed would have fresh sheets, my dirty clothes would be in the hamper, and my CD's would be arranged in alphabetical order: first by band name, then by album. Yes, Rubbermaid containers are John's best friends.

And me. Wendy Moira Angela Darling. It used to be Wendy Moira Angela Wyndam, but then my parents got divorced, and my mother changed her surname to Darling (even though it wasn't her maiden name; told you she's obsessed) and Michael, John and myself followed suit. John got really ticked about it... probably because under that Einstein IQ he is _just _immature enough thinks his "manhood" is challenged by a last name like "Darling".

"Well, I'll leave you three to get settled, then," Aunt Jane said. "Come back down for tea!"

As soon as she left I rolled my eyes. A fifteen year old girl sharing a room with her kid brothers?

I'm planning on changing in the bathroom.

I dumped Michael's bag on the bed with the wooden side-guards. Most kids his age would complain, but they made him feel safe. Our "emotionally detatched" (those would be John's words) mother tried to take them away from him cold turkey and he had a panic attack. She never bothered about it again.

I caught sight of John heading to the bed on the other side of the room. I motored over there and plopped down on it before he could reach it. He only paused to look at me for a few moments with raised eyebrows before turning around and heading over to the other bed on the same side of the room as Michael.

I hate it when he's so... so... _passive_.

Grr. More John rubbing off.

---

_Well, there's the end of that (truly teaser) chapter!_

_Please leave me your thoughts... you don't need an account to review!_

_Thanks!_

_Scratch O'Brien_


	2. Barney the Bear

_Hi, y'all! This is Scratch O'Brien, who does not own Peter Pan, but does own this story. If you steal it, I will find out and report you! I'm, sorry for being gone so long but you must forgive me because my teachers have nothing better to do with their time than cook up gargantuan homework assignments! Here is the second chapter of _My Converse Match Your Tunic_; as always, please read and review :)_

_---_

Late afternoon tea was a putrid affair. Aunt Jane believes that sugar is too sweet for children, (she denies the existence of "teenagers") and that adults should not use the atrocious stuff due to the need to protect their teeth. To make matters worse, artificial sweetner is too "New Age" for Aunt Jane's table. If the woman wanted New Age, she should go check out the Essence Hut -- central supplier of patchouli oil, incense, and weed to the local hippies all the way back in New England.

Dinner was even worse. After unpacking myself and Michael's bags while listening to John blather on and on about some guy from _Don Quixote_ who tilted at windmills (whatever tilting is)I got to sit right next to my darling Aunt Jane, who perpetually smelled of mothballs and the noxious fumes of her floral old lady perfume. The fact we had to "dress" for dinner didn't help matters. I wore a hideous white knee-length skirt and an itchy pink sweater set my mother had bought me. John and Michael wore slacks, long-sleeved button-down white shirts and ties that looked uncomfortably tight. Aunt Jane wore a beige sweater that matched the paint on her car perfectly. My sandal-clad feet ached for my Converse.

After dinner, I ducked into the nursery to grab some normal clothing that hadn't been soaked in starch and ironed a quazillion times by my mother. I changed into jeans and a yellow shirt, then grabbed my imatation iPod whatchamacallit. I threw myself onto my bed and listened to my music.

"Wennnn-dyyyy, I can't find Barrrrr-neeeey."

_Dangit._

Barney the Bear has been Michael's treasured companion since he got it for his first birthday. Michael had either skipped the imaginary friend phase or was going to go through it late in life (and I really hoped it was the former). Barney the Bear had curly brown fur and wore a bright purple rib-knit sweater. Barney the Bear was also about the size of a morbidly obese weiner dog and pretty freakin' hard to miss.

I started hypothesising. Maybe Mother hid it. She was forever trying to wean Michael of the childhood habits he had rights to, which is why I hater her so much. Wean isn't even thr right word. She just tried to take everything away cold turkey --"tried" being the operative word. Binky, nightlight, bedtime guard rails. Only the binky had Michael given up. All this thought put me in a crappy mood. "Try harder," I said and turned up the volume.

"Bu-bu-but..."

_Wendy, you will _not_ look at his puppy face this time. Don't look! No looking! Don't look at the puppy face..._ I turned my head just a little to my left but promptly turned it back._ Don'tlookdon'tlookdon't..._

I looked at him. And his big puppy eyes. His really freakin' big, sad puppy eyes. I sighed and turned off my imitation iPod whatchamacallit. As soon as it was on my nightstand Michael grabbed my hand and cheered as I was dragged on the search for Barney the Bear, knowing that if we didn't find him I would not get any sleep tonight because I would have to sleep with Michael in his twin-sized bed with the guard rails.

---

Barney the Bear was found to be shoved inside a dresser drawer in the nursery filled with dust, sewing supplies and glitter. At least, that's what I tried to tell myself it was at first; but there was no denying it. This wasn't average craft-store glitter; it wasn't rough -- on the contrary, it was finer than the finest sand. It didn't sparkle; it had more of a very soft sheen. And it wasn't gold or red or blue or white or green or what have you. It was... well, I don't know. I didn't even know that color existed, and if I did I would have guessed that human eye could see it. But I guess it can.

And, another odd thing about that glitter: you touched it, and you felt like you were _almost_ floating. Not quite, but _almost_. I turned to Michael; his mouth hung slightly open as he brushed the specks off of Barney the Bear's sweater. I turned to place my hand once again onto the very thin film of this ethereal dust...

SLAM! Aunt Jane had shut the door and, with a fervor I had no idea existed in her, began brushing and then slapping the not-glitter off myself, Michael and Barney the Bear.

"Why were you in that drawer?" She said in a shrill voice that was more than stern. It was angry and scared.

"We were looking for Barney the Bear, Aunt Jane, now will you please quit slapping us?" She paused, her hands poised in Michael's unruly tuft of red-gold hair that she had been smacking the not-glitter out of. She had an unreadeable face.

Moving her hands from Michael's hair, she began to speak, the same unreadable look on her face and the same tone of voice in her words. "You two will not ever go in that drawer again. And you will both take a bath, shampooing your hair twice. Scrub behind your ears and use the homemade lye soap under the kitchen sink. And then you will put these clothes and Barney the Bear into a plastic grocery bag that you will leave on the floor of the laundry room. Then you will change into your pajamas, go to bed, _and you will not mention a word to John or your mother, do you hear_?"

Michael clutched Barney the Bear to his chest as Aunt Jane glared at us, trying to hide the fear in the depths of her eyes.

"Do you hear me?" She murmered in a dangerously low voice that caused me to take an involuntart step back as I grabbed Michael's shoulders. I felt a shiver slide down his spine the same time another one went down mine.

"Yes Aunt Jane," we whispered, and scampered off like as quickly as we could to do her bidding.

---

A meek and mild voice called out "Wendy?"

"Yes, Michael?" I sighed, as I turned from the book Mother was making me read.

"I don't have Barney." He was once again wearing his puppy face.

"You couldn't find him?" John interuppted.

Michael turned to John with big, sad brown eyes. "We did, but-"

"But Aunt Jane insisted on washing him," I finished.

"Yeah. Aunt Jane wanted to wash him," Michael echoed.

"Children! Light's out!" Aunt Jane said, her voice trilling up the stairs like the feet of so many Lost Boys.

"Yes Aunt Jane," we three children chourused like a well-rehearsed choir as we began the unfinished bedtime preperations. After marking my page, I lifted up Michael onto my hip and put him to bed. I turned off all the lights and plugged in Michaels night light. I was on the way to my bed when...

"Wendy?" The tiny, pitiful voice asked.

"Coming, Michael," I said, then grabbed an extra pillow from my bed so I could maintain some level of comfort squeezed in between the guard rails of Michael's bed with Michael himself, all over some sort of freaky not-glitter.

---

_'Twas short, I know. I will try to make them longer but I really liked where this one finishes! Please review!_


	3. Operation Awkward Turtle

Author's Note:_ It looks like this story won the poll on my profile! Keep voting, though. For those of you that don't know, said poll is a poll to determine which story I will next update._

_I also know that this isn't the longest of chapters -- but I felt it was a good place to leave off. _

Author's Self Promotion:_ Read and review my other stories NOW!_

Author's Plea:_ Please review this story, then read and review all my other ones... pweese? Michael's puppy face_

Author's Second Plea:_ If you love this story, YOU WILL FAVORITE IT!_

Author's Disclaimer:_ I did not create, nor do I own,_ Peter Pan_,_ Mission: Impossible_, or BBC._

Author's Second Disclaimer:_ Thomas the Tank Engine does not belong to me, it belongs to someone else._

Author's Thank You to Memorare: _I would like to thank Memorare for the inspiration for part of this chapter. If you read her review for chapter two, you will understand. Thanks, Memorare! I owe_ you_ a crumpet this time! What kind of jam do you favor?_

xxx

John isn't curious, per se, he just... _inspects_ things. So when I woke up in the morning I wasn't surprised to see him rubbing the not-glitter between the index finger and thumb of his right hand. I got out of bed and began rotating my neck in vain attempts to stretch out a crick in it as I walked over to him.

John, who hadn't forgot to don is round glasses, didn't even look over at me before he spoke. "Obviously Aunt Jane's attempts to hide it from me were futile," he began, his voice an intelligent almost-drawl. "I overheard her conversation with you and Michael yesterday. Do you think she is making drugs?"

I snorted. "Yeah, Aunt Jane goes down to the red light district so she can deal crack to gangsters in baggy pants," I said. Imitating John's most refined way of speaking, I said "That is not highly plausible, but I suppose we cannot rule out the possibility entirely."

John rolled his eyes. "She doesn't have to sell it on the street. She may just make it, and sell it to someone else who sells it to the people on the street. Have fun explaining to Michael what crack is," he said, nodding his head towards something behind me.

Turns out it was Michael, standing behind me in his favorite pair of Thomas the Tank Engine footie pajamas. Michael opened his mouth, most likely to ask what crack was. "Just look at a sidewalk, Michael. They're all over the place. I call first shower," I said, and darted down the hall into the bathroom after grabbing my clothes for the day.

xxx

Alas, Aunt Jane had never added a shower to the bathroom. Instead, there was a really old bathtub, the kind with the claw feet. At least plumbing was installed so I didn't have to boil the friggin' water myself, too. After I was done with my bath, and had changed, brushed my teeth and completed the rest of my morning routine, I left the bathroom, only to be caught by Aunt Jane.

"Wendy, is it really necessary to spend twenty minutes in the bathroom?"

"Um, three of those was that insane bathtub filling up, ten were bathing, the other seven changing, brushing my teeth, washing my face and brushing my hair, so, yeah, it is. Would you rather I ran around dirty, naked, with ratty hair and halotosis?"

Aunt Jane glared at me. "Wendy Moira Angela Darling, has no one ever taught you to respect your elders?"

I gave her an angelic smile. "Nope. But Mother sure tried her best," I said before walking away.

I heard Aunt Jane mutter something that sounded sort of like "little bitch" before she hobbled away.

I snorted._ The feeling's mutual, Aunt Jane,_ I thought.

xxx

"Wendy," Michael whined, "I'm hungry!"

I sighed. "Michael, lunch was thirty minutes ago."

He wrinkled his freckled nose. "It was yucky!"

I couldn't help but agree. If there was one thing that John, Michael and I had in common, it was that we absolutly detested spinach and any sort of leafy green vegetable that could be turned into the main component of a salad. Carrots, fine. Cauliflower and broccoli, sure. Brussels sprouts we can stand. Spinach? Nuh-uh.

Can you guess what we had for lunch that day?

Yup, spinach! Well, there was chicken noodle soup, too, but mainly spinach. And since we weren't allowed seconds until all the spinach was gone, and we couldn't even bear to look at our spinach, we didn't get a lot to eat.

"Is it time for a kitchen raid, Wendy?" John asked.

I grinned. "So, what's for lunch today, lads?" I inquired.

Michael whooped. John smiled and sat at the dest. Sitting next to him on my own chair, Michael to my left on his tiptoes, I opened a notebook and began drawing a layout of the house so we could plan our raid.

xxx

Our mother had mealtime rules not unlike Aunt Jane's, and our mother was rather fond of cooking food less than appetizing. As a result, us lovely Darling children were not untried kitchen raiders.

"I only see one difficulty," John said. "We don't know where everything is located within the target area."

"True. But, if we wait until Aunt Wendy's nap, we should have plenty of time to just dig through the cupboards and search. She must have something good... she does sell crack, after all."

Michael frowned. "Why would anybody buy a crack for their sidewalk?" he asked.

John and I exchanged a look. "Forget it, Michael," I said. "Let's focus on getting cookies from the kitchen."

"Cookies!" he said happily, crawling onto my lap.

"Shh, Michael," I said. "That's one of the most important things to remember. We have to be absolutely quiet... especially since the heating vent in the kitchen may lead to Aunt Jane's room."

"Okay," Michael whispered.

"Okay, lads, so at 10:23 we go downstairs and turn on the television. There's some historical BBC special or whatever Aunt Jane was talking about -- we'll have to wait through a few of those nasty commercials, though. We'll say John wanted to watch it. We'll until Aunt Jane is five minutes into her nap, then go into the kitchen and eat, leaving the television on so she won't suspect anything."

"Wecan't use the microwave, though," John added. "She'll hear it. Remember, Aunt Jane is a light sleeper."

"Right. So we'll go for cookies, bananas, celery and applesauce. We'll have to slurp the applesauce, though -- we can't leave any dishes behind. Deal?"

"Deal!" My brothers chorused.

I grinned. "It's 10:23. Operation Awkward Turtle is officially in motion."

We headed downstairs, John humming what faintly sounded like the _Mission: Impossible_ theme song.


End file.
